June 11, 2017

Just like your favorite hoagie joint or a frosted mug filled to its brim with a salty-ass beer, there are some things in the universe that one cannot quit. I guess that the desire to get half-crocked and write about music qualifies as one of those things you just can’t quit. I’m planning on sticking to mixes and vinyl rips of albums that aren’t readily available online. I was going to start anew, but figured this rigamarole has been around for nine years, so let’s just keep shouting into the aether just a little bit more.

Anyhow, there’s a bit of a blasé backstory to my first contribution here in a long while. It’s not anything fancy or some bougie couture collection of forgotten favorites, but a little token of gratitude to a few co-workers at my place of employment before a well-deserved summer recess. One likes to serenade students with James Taylor covers during the humdrum moments when the school year has wound down to its rudderless end. To the best of my limited knowledge, he’s a big fan of Loggins and Messina, America, Bread and the Pure Prairie League. The other fellow doesn’t share much either, but I have caught him jamming out to Dick’s Picks during his prep period. Plus, the dude wears a Flying Burrito Brothers T-shirt on the last day of school every year. I wanted to find a middle ground between these two seemingly similar palates and capture that bittersweet moment when you reminisce about the highs and lows of the past year and wonder what is to come in the next one.

I guess I should establish the intended vibe. It’s a collection of every song I’d reach for if you asked me to summarize all I love about the understated, sometimes existential worries of the 70s folk/country scene and the rest just tries to garner just enough mellow chortling to keep things upbeat. Let’s hearken back to the heyday of J. Peterman and call it what I foolishly imagine it to be–A heady stroll through the “hits” of the 70s, except for the all the ones that aren’t, that’ll keep your head nodding while you wipe a few tears away during the cowboy songs about men who can’t quite measure up to what they could have been.